Newcastle United captain Fabricio Coloccini has claimed that he and his teammates have been "too nice" on the pitch.

Steve McClaren's side are fighting for survival in the Premier League as they are currently in the bottom three of the table, two points from safety.

The Magpies have picked up just one victory in their last seven league fixtures, and Coloccini believes that the team needs to work on being more aggressive.

"Maybe we are too nice," FourFourTwo quotes Coloccini as saying. "It is true that we need to win more tackles. If you look at all the 50-50s at the moment, maybe we are losing more than the opposite side and that is not good enough.

"Sometimes in our team that can make the difference. We have great football players with the ball, but we need the ball. And to get the ball, we need to be winning that tackle."

Newcastle's next league game is against Everton on February 3.